A Simple and Stupid Thing
by rockinmillie
Summary: A seemingly small event causes Mokuba to start wondering if he and his brother are really as close as he likes to think.
1. Chapter 1

It's a simple and stupid thing, and Mokuba feels dumb for caring.

It's nine at night and he walks into the bathroom, catching his brother in the middle of drying off from a shower. His tall and lanky frame is bent slightly at the waist and his ribs, which are just faint impressions, neatly frame his sides. Mokuba can't remember the last time he saw his bare legs. Even in the middle of summer he wears long pants.

He can see the dark hair down below that frames his private area, which in its simplicity and blatant visibility, looks intimate and casual; completely the opposite of its owner.

Seto turns his head. For a split second their eyes meet, and something passes so fast between them Mokuba can't pinpoint what it is. Then Seto's face twists into a snarl and he throws a towel around his waist, at the same time recoiling farther away from him as if he's made of poison.

"For the love of God, don't you knock?" he spits. Mokuba blinks, too caught off guard to reply. Seto gives an exasperated sigh through his nose and snatches his clothes off the floor.

"I'll get out of your way," He mutters, warily avoiding Mokuba's gaze, as if he has done something wrong by being naked and is now ashamed at being caught. Awkwardly he sidesteps out the door. He is gone and Mokuba suddenly hates him.

As he pees he wonders why this is. He doesn't really care to see his brother naked, but he still feels hurt that Seto made such a big deal out of a simple mistake. Whatever. He decides that it's pointless to worry over and to forget about it as soon as possible.

But he doesn't forget about it, not as he lies in bed staring up at his dark ceiling that night. He supposes he shouldn't feel slighted that Seto barked at him, after all, that's the common reaction when someone walks in on you when you have no clothes on. But nonetheless he can't shake off an oddly powerful feeling of being wrongfully wounded. He pulls a Seto and tells himself to knock it off; he has better things to do with his time than figure out his stupid reaction. He rolls over onto his side with finality and goes to sleep.

And then the next day as he sits in school, without even trying, he figures it out, just like that. He gets it. The thing is they've both seen each other naked a billion times before; have seen each other at their ugliest and most disgusting, and if Seto had walked in on him when he was toweling off, he wouldn't have cared. He would have ignored him, because it wouldn't have mattered. But Seto apparently did care, and thought that Mokuba would care too, and this somehow stung. Without ever being aware of it Mokuba has assumed that even though Seto would never let anyone else see him exposed in the slightest, he, as his little brother, had and would always be the unquestioned exception no matter what.

It's a simple and stupid thing and he tries to ignore it, but he can't help himself. Now he finds himself looking, seriously searching as the days go by for other hints that his brother doesn't like or trust him as much as he thought he did. Along the way he picks up more silly meaningless things that he can't bring himself to cast off, instead collecting and hording them like shells from the beach. Here is a harsh word, there is an exasperated look, over here still is a refusal to tell him what's wrong, here's one of millions of listless responses, and hanging over all of it is a looming sense of a wall between the two of them that he sincerely hopes was not always there.

Despite himself he begins in his mind combing through the past, trying to figure out what he did if anything to deserve these things. Maybe it wasn't what he'd done, but what he hadn't done. Maybe he should have spoken up more, maybe a teasing remark he'd made had been misinterpreted because he hadn't bothered to explain it. Maybe he hadn't offered him enough help with everything, maybe he was getting in the way these days, maybe, despite everything, he had just fallen short one too many times of being good enough.

He's not stupid, despite what some of his teachers might claim. He's aware of the logical answer to all of this, the textbook excuse. Seto is naturally an angry and private person. This is his brother's problem, not his. It has nothing to do with him.

He's not stupid, but he is a young teenager. He knows better, but that doesn't change anything. He continues to search for a mistake he's made because as disheartening as it is to think he's in the wrong, it's worse to think that there's nothing he can do.

He finds himself staring at his brother one day as he works opposite of him. He has been sitting there for maybe a half of an hour, but Seto doesn't seem to have noticed that he's even in the room. He finds himself chanting the mantra _look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me _in his headjust, he tells himself, to see how long it will take for him to finally look up. They used to play games like this in the orphanage, glare at each other for no reason at all, pretend they were mad at each other until someone actually pulled them aside to ask why they were upset because they always seemed to get along so well unlike the other siblings, and then they each had to hold their breath just to keep from laughing.

Twenty two chants later he finally looks up. Mokuba has a hunch that he'd been waiting for him to go away.

"What is it?" he asks, and there is defiantly a note of annoyance in his voice. Mokuba narrows his eyes, waiting for his brother to remember how to play. He has patience. He'll stare for the rest of the day if he has to.

Seto turns around, as if expecting something to be behind him. Seeing nothing but a blank wall, he turns back. "What?" he asks again, now feeling his face for something there. Mokuba rolls his eyes at the blank expression, then gets up and leaves the room. Even as he walks out the door he is still waiting for his brother to suddenly, miraculously understand.

He starts ignoring him, just to see if he notices it. He stops saying 'hi' in the morning and he stays in his room most of the time that he's home. He learns you can survive long periods of isolation with the help of video games and a computer, and he wonders if this is why his brother never seemed to need friends. It would explain a lot, like why after a week of the silent treatment he still doesn't seem to notice Mokuba's sudden absence.

On Saturday, Seto goes out for reasons Mokuba doesn't bother to note. He's stuck on his video game and he's bored with the internet, so he takes a walk around his colossal house. He soon finds himself in his brother's abnormally deserted study, which is way too clean for his tastes. It's weird; Seto keeps every room orderly except his bedroom, where Mokuba is asked not to trespass for no reason (he does so anyway). His room is an absolute mess of clothes and bed sheets he never washes, but when the maid comes to clean, Seto tells her not to go in there. His big brother is like this; he has a lot of small, weird habits he doesn't tell anyone about and that don't make any sense. Whenever Mokuba asks him why he does something like sleep with a pillow over his face or flinch when someone touches him, he'll just shift uncomfortably and mutter, "It doesn't matter, alright? It's private."

He turns on the big screen T.V. that sits in a cabinet against the wall. Originally he saw the television Seto installed as something for him; a gift so he could hang around while Seto worked and not get bored. But increasingly now he's seeing the world through eyes without a loving filter; maybe his brother just put it there so he wouldn't bother him while he concentrated.

After he turns it on and watches for a few minutes, he decides to spend the night there. Why not? He's bored; it will be nice to get a change of scenery and he has more than enough room to spread out and relax.

He raids the kitchen for soda and popcorn, grabs some blankets and some scary movies he borrowed from his friend. He sort of wishes he had someone to watch them with, but none of the servants stay longer than they have to according to his brother's wishes. He's really starting to hate how the world he lives in is always bending to fit the shape his brother wants it to be.

In the dark, the artificial glow of the television is comforting in its familiarity. It reminds him of when he and Seto used to stay up late watching T.V. when Gozaburo was still around. Seto usually only got time off from work at night, and by then they were both too tired to do anything but sit and stare dumbly at the screen, not taking anything in but at least together, and much happier for it.

The movie is about zombies who attack Alaska or something. Mokuba doesn't really care because he's only concentrating on the gory parts. When he's depressed he likes to watch gross crap. It helps soothe his frustration when he can see blood.

The movie ends and the credits start rolling. He tells himself he's going to get up and put another movie in, after he gets a little rest, but it's just an excuse to fall asleep without getting up to lie on the couch. He sleeps the dreamless sleep of the exhausted and when he wakes up it feels like only a few minutes have passed, give or take a few hours.

He wakes up because someone has turned the lights on, and Mokuba is left blinking stupidly and turning his head from side to side, like one of those slow cartoon turtles who are always waking up from an afternoon nap.

"Well, what's all this?" asks a husky voice Mokuba recognizes immediately. "What're you doing here? Did your bed break or something?"

Mokuba yawns. His feet are freezing cold and he wonders how he's managed to sleep at all. On the T.V. the movie's main menu repeats a small reel of horror, over and over again. His brother, still fully dressed, comes over to where he's lying and looks at the T.V.

"Thirty Days of Night." He reads. Mokuba can't see him, but he knows he's looking down at him now. "That's strange; I thought you liked good movies."

Mokuba doesn't reply. He's trying to decide if he should fall asleep again or get up.

"Well don't just lie there; go to bed," Seto snaps.

There is no love in his voice and there is no patience. Mokuba searches, but he can't find any sign of affection in the way that his brother is treating him, or has been treating him, and it's so depressing and infuriating that he decides to lie there on the floor for the rest of the night and maybe for the rest of the week, because if you're so terrible that your only family member doesn't love you, your life is not worth the time it takes for you to get up off the floor.

So Seto helps him do it.

He hooks his hands under his armpits and hoists him up to his feet, and Mokuba stands reluctantly on his own. As his brother pops the DVD out of the player, a question builds inside of him with such urgency that by the time Seto puts the disk back into its case and holds it out, waiting for him to accept it, it comes unbidden out of his mouth.

"Do you love me?"

The correct response is a confident and reassuring answer in the affirmative, and Mokuba likes to fancy that his brother never gives a wrong answer. The hand that is holding the DVD case falls slowly to his side and when Mokuba is brave enough to look up into his face, he sees that his brother's brow has furrowed in confusion. "What?"

"You heard me," he mutters.

His brother straightens out to his full height. He must crane his neck to stare down at him. "Why?" he asks.

"It's a yes or no question; I'd like to think you'd be smart enough to answer it," he snaps.

For most people this would be enough to force them into replying, but Seto makes a habit out of doing the opposite of whatever anyone expects him to do. "You've been acting weird lately; is something wrong?" he asks.

Mokuba just turns and leaves, fighting back the tears in his eyes. He feels ashamed and oddly triumphant that for once he's the one leaving his brother inspecting his past, trying to find what sign he missed that would have told him he did something wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

One time Seto dislocated his shoulder. Gozaburo said it was because he fell out of a tree and landed on it, but Mokuba always had a sneaking suspicion that he was lying. Seto never told him what happened.

He did come to his room late that night. Mokuba can still remember how his face had looked illuminated by the hallway light; white as a sheet, sweating and half crazed, like a feral animal in pain. His shoulder hung at an impossible angle. Mokuba remembered thinking that once he'd gotten used to seeing it like that he'd like to touch it to see if it felt any different from a regular shoulder.

_Hide me, _his brother whispered, and instantly he had become deathly afraid. Back then he'd had a roomy closet, easily big enough to sit in comfortably. Wordlessly he'd led him to it and Seto awkwardly squished himself into a messy corner, attempting to cover himself with a blanket using his good arm. Mokuba threw the sheet over his head. "Why are you hiding? What's going on?" he whispered.

"Don't worry. Just be quiet and everything will be alright, okay?" Even in his moment of need, Seto was still the one doing the comforting.

Mokuba had closed the door and jumped into his bed, securely covering himself with blankets but remaining very much awake.

Two hours went by with nothing happening. Mokuba's nerves had started to calm when his door opened and his lights flipped on, briefly blinding him. Mokuba sat up and hazily met the eyes of the pediatrician who had taken care of Seto and Mokuba's illnesses and injuries since their adoption. For a weighted moment they stared into each other's eyes. Mokuba could see the surprise in the doctor's face and he was sure that he could clearly see the guilt and fear in his own. Because of this, years after he understood it hadn't been his fault, he would continue to blame himself that his brother had ever been found.

Another man, probably an orderly, came in and without a word began searching the room, looking under the bed, behind the furniture.

"Where's your bother, Mokuba?" the doctor asked gently.

"He's not here," he'd replied, far too loud. The orderly opened his closet door and peered inside. For one glorious moment it looked as though he was about to turn around and continue his search elsewhere, but then he paused, walked in and cleanly lifted the sheet from Seto's head. _Boo_.

"Come on kid, come with us," said the orderly in what he must have thought was a soothing voice. Seto hadn't moved. "We're not gonna hurt ya," the man said, trying to pull him up by the good arm. Swiftly and with alarming precision Seto sank his teeth into the man's hand. He yelped, and with a growl grabbed his arm again and wrenched him to his feet.

"Seto, calm down."

"Jordan, get in here and help me before he hurts himself."

They had to drag his older brother from out of the closet, kicking and writhing like a fish out of water all the way. Mokuba watched cowering on his bed, his childish fear and confusion leaving him paralyzed, whispering _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_, even though no one was listening. Seto grabbed onto the closet's doorway and they'd almost had to break his fingers to get him to let go.

"This will be over before you know it Seto, and if you keep fighting like this it'll only make it take longer," said the doctor, earning a wild kick in the shin. "Goddamn it!" he snarled.

With a final tug they wrenched his good hand off and half carried him out the door. Mokuba stood up mechanically, preparing to follow, but then froze. As he stared out into the hall, he saw that Gozaburo had been standing there half hidden in the shadows the entire time, looking on. If guilty wasn't the word to describe the look on his aging face, there was at least a defined heaviness there that wasn't usually present. Suddenly he seemed to sense that someone was observing at him and looked up. Spotting Mokuba, he wordlessly strode over to his door and closed it, clicking the lock on the outside of it firmly into place.

It was a testament to Seto's stoicism that he had barely made a sound during the entire fight, but safely out of Mokuba's sight and on his way to certain pain his warbling scream filled the mansion, reverberating off the walls. Mokuba had never once heard him yell before and the noise was more than enough to shake him out of his petrified state.

"Leave him alone! LEAVE HIM ALONE!" he screamed, jumping out of bed and pounding on the door. He knew his brother was going to die and he attacked his door for all it was worth, but he was only eight and too weak to break out. He must have screamed and kicked for at least a half an hour before he finally fell to the floor spent and sobbing, eventually fading from consciousness on the soft beige carpet.

But Seto didn't die. They hadn't been trying to hurt him, they just wanted to fix him. The next time he saw his brother his shoulder was back where it belonged. Through this, Mokuba learned that sometimes you'd rather suffer through the awkwardness and handicap of a wound than face certain pain trying to make it right.

He knows that for this reason, he'll be fine if Seto doesn't speak of the conversation again, but after about twenty minutes his brother enters his room with a plate in his hand.

"I brought you some pizza. They had some at the meeting, I thought you'd like it."

It is clearly meant to be a peace offering and Mokuba gives him an exasperated look. His brother is smarter than this and he expected, if anything at all, at least a more creative attempt at getting back into his good graces.

"Well, if you don't eat it I will," Seto grumbles. He places the plate on the nightstand and sits on the bed. "What were you doing in my office?"

"Hanging out," is all Mokuba can manage to say. He doesn't feel like talking right now.

Seto appears to have run out of things to say too because there's an awkward silence. _This is such bullshit. All of this is such bullshit, _Mokuba thinks. He's of course referring to the situation at hand, but he's sure it could also refer to the past few years. When Seto decided that he didn't need him anymore. When he decided that the changes in his brother were none of his business.

"When did this happen? When did it get so hard for us to talk? We used to hang out all the time and now…" he trails off because he doesn't need to finish the thought. Instead he looks at Seto, who is now hunched over, hand supporting his chin, thinking.

"Do you know?" he asks. Seto blinks and then shakes his head, admitting that he agrees with what is being said and therefore further depressing his little brother.

"I'm sorry," mutters Mokuba, hating how pitiful his voice sounds, "if I've been annoying or a bother."

Seto shakes his head again. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"Then why do you act like it?"

The question finally makes Seto look at him, brow furrowed once again. "I don't act like it."

"Yes, you do. You do it all the time; I've been keeping track." As soon as it's out of his mouth he regrets saying the last part.

"What are you talking about? What have I done?"

"You always act like you're mad at me or something. You yell all the time about stuff that shouldn't even matter."

"That's not about you, that's just the way I talk," Seto protests. Mokuba stares at him. "…That's not good enough, is it?" Seto says. He sighs and goes back to staring at the opposite wall. "You shouldn't take the things I say seriously, Mokuba."

"You shouldn't say them at all." Mokuba counters.

"No, I shouldn't," Seto agrees. He looks back at him. "I've been careless, haven't I?"

Mokuba gives a wary nod.

"I would hate for you to think," Seto says slowly, this openness a foreign concept to him "that anything I do that seems cruel has anything to do with you."

Mokuba rolls onto his side so that he now faces his brother. "Why do you act like that anyways? What are you so mad at?"

Seto looks like this question has sent him off into his own world; almost as if he has just realized that his phone is missing and now he's trying to remember where he left it. Mokuba knows better than to ever expect to get an answer now so he keeps talking. "You know you don't have to act like that around me. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"You sound like Yugi," Seto sneers, but then he catches himself and says, "I know that. Once again, it's not your fault. I'm not tryingto upset you."

"You don't seem to be trying to prevent it from happening either," Mokuba growls.

Seto buries his faces in his hands and lets out a tired sigh. Mokuba waits for him to collect himself.

Finally he looks up. "Listen, you know I… love you." His face twists slightly at the last phrase as if it hurts him to say so. "And if I don't say it as much as I should it's because I think it's a given, not because I don't mean it."

"Then why'd you make that face?"

"Because this is _hard _for me," he snaps, finally unable to keep his agitation from bleeding into his voice, "and if you haven't realized, I'm not the kind of person who just walks around saying this stuff."

Mokuba turns onto his side away from his brother. "It's not that fucking hard," he tells him, coldly. A voice meant to freeze off whatever tie is between them. "Don't make it out like you're a victim, because you're not."

This seems like a good final word and he makes a mental note to congratulate himself on it later. Right now he simply waits for the depression in his bed where Seto is sitting to relax, as it will when his brother stands up to leave; the signal that he has won this terrible argument. But instead of this he feels a hand grip his shoulder bracingly. He recoils instinctively, but it, rather annoyingly, stays where it is.

"Come on," Seto says, his voice unnervingly different in its softness. He squeezes his shoulder tighter. "You know you're the only person I really care about; I don't give anyone half as much thought as I give you, you know that, right?"

Mokuba bites his lip. This is what he's wanted to hear for a long time, and what really hurts is that he has to listen to it right when he's in the middle of learning not to care that he'll never hear it directed at him. The shift in gears makes his chest ache.

"You know what?" Seto asks gently, "We need to calm down so we can actually talk about this without making it worse. I know you haven't eaten yet; I'll call out for pizza and that DVD you wanted to see. And we'll work from there, alright?"

This request suddenly makes Mokuba laugh.

"What?" his brother asks warily.

He looks over his shoulder and grins shyly, "Nothing. It's just funny how you always solve stuff by buying something."

"I don't…" his brother's face freezes suddenly. "Fuck, how did that happen?"

"Never mind," says Mokuba quickly, "I like pizza."

"Yeah, I know." He stands up. "Come on, let's go."

They spend the rest of the night in a state of silent calm and acceptance that comes after any release of emotion. The pizza is cold when it arrives and the movie is kind of stupid, but it doesn't matter. Mokuba has forgotten how enjoyable it is to just sit there with someone, not doing anything but not necessarily ignoring each other either. But as two in the morning comes and goes, according to the digital clock on the DVD player, Mokuba suddenly remembers that they had been planning to continue their conversation. He doesn't really want to bring up the painful topic again at this point, but there is still a sense of openness lingering around in the air that he bitterly admits will fade by tomorrow, and he wants to get as much out of it as possible.

"Seto?"

His brother turns and he finds he must struggle to think of something to say.

"…Do you remember when you dislocated your shoulder?"

He nods.

"How did that happen? I never found out."

Seto slowly places his plastic plate onto the side of the couch, crosses his legs and leans back. "Well, let's see," he says tightly, staring up at the ceiling as he conjures up the memory.

"I think that happened back when I was studying geometry. My tutor gave me this huge list of problems to do that might have taken me, what, two hours to complete? I already understood what he wanted me to work on and I couldn't see the point in doing all that just to prove it. So instead I went to bed early since I was so tired. That must have been one of the first times I rebelled against what they told me to do." He pauses for a moment, savoring this discovery. "I was almost asleep when Gozaburo came in and told me to get up and finish what I was supposed to. I didn't move, we started fighting and, well, he pulled my arm a little too hard." He straightens his head so his eyes are facing the T.V.

"I don't think he was _trying _to do what happened," he admits grudgingly, "but he didn't seem too depressed with the results."

"Damn," says Mokuba quietly. "I didn't know that. What did he do next?"

"Left the room. Didn't say a fucking word, just left me on the bed."

"And that's when you came to my room?"

"After I'd stopped shaking so much, yes." Seto's voice is a mechanical monotone as he reveals this, as if he's repeating the latest Kaiba Corp stock price. But Mokuba, who has lived with him for all his life, can hear the rage just barely accenting his words, an energized and twisted mutation of his shame and helplessness.

"Which reminds me," Seto sighs, his voice suddenly heavy as lead, "I never apologized for bringing you into that mess. I shouldn't have burdened you with my own problem like that."

"No, I wanted to help," says Mokuba quickly. He attempts to catch his brother's eyes, but they're now starting unseeingly at the wooden table in front of him.

"Thanks, but there's no way you could have. You were too young."

And once again, his words sting. Not because he thinks Seto sees him as worthless and too weak to be of service, but because he is right. He couldn't have helped and what's more, he can't help him now. Despite loving each other more than anyone else ever had and never being physically far apart, they are vastly separated. Unseen between them is a canyon full of differences ranging from age to experiences to role models to conflicting emotions. And Mokuba's devotion and protection does not reach far enough across to touch his brother, who he now realizes has always, in one way or another, stood alone. All he can do is watch as he either continues to withstand blow after blow or at long last, crumble to pieces and blow away un-mourned by anyone except the one who couldn't save him.

And, because it's the most he can offer, this is what he'll do.

"Well, just because I'm younger than you doesn't mean I can't help in some way."

But Seto shakes his head. "There was nothing you could have done. And it was stupid of me to think that you should have to try. It's not right that you should be bothered with my issues."

"You're always up in my shit, why can't I be up in yours?"

The stupid phrasing achieves the desired effect; Kaiba finally looks at him, mouth twisted slightly with disgust.

"Is that how kids talk these days?"

"My point is-"

"Because if you say that one more time, I'm taking you out of public school."

"Listen; just because I'm younger than you doesn't mean I can't at least give support or whatever. What, you think I'm not tough enough to handle it?"

"It's not a matter of not being strong enough; it's a matter of not making you deal with things you shouldn't have to worry about."

"Well, what if I want to worry about it? I'd rather stick around when you're in trouble than just sit in the dark."

Seto bites his lip, turns his head slightly, then turns back to look at his brother.

"Fine; the next time KaibaCorp is about to take a nosedive, and the next time all my chief executives decide to simultaneously quite, and the next time I'm informed by the geek patrol that the next card game played is going to decide the fate of the planet, I'll give you a ring. Does that sound nice?" he asks sarcastically.

"Yep," says Mokuba happily. Then he gives an exaggerated stretch and lies down on the couch, his head resting on Seto's thigh. His brother flinches at the unauthorized display of affection, but as Mokuba falls into a heavy sleep next to him he gradually un-stiffens and relaxes deep into the couch.


End file.
